It’s hard for a Champagne house to maintain its long-term appeal, but it helps if your prestige cuvée is legendary.
Brands like Louis Roederer have the name, the history, and the undeniable prestige behind them.
Though when it comes to staying consumer relevant for more than 250 years, how does such a brand move with the times? For this particular house, targeting a new generation of consumers, adapting to climate change, and avoiding boring concepts like marketing.
The Roederer estate was first founded in 1776, though the domaine was inherited and renamed by Louis Roederer more than a half-century later. Today, the estate is regarded as one of the few independent, family-run champagne houses, producing more than 3.5 million bottles of bubbles a year. Although known for the namesake bottles of Champagne, the house’s true skyrocket to fame came with the production of Cristal, which was first produced back in 1875 for Russian czar Alexander II due to his fear of assasination by explosives.
Alexander called for a Champagne produced in a clear flat-bottomed bottle whose contents were visible. Roederer accepted the request, and upon the wine’s creation, Cristal was born. However, the wine didn’t actually become available on the market until 1945; today, some 300-400K bottles are produced annually.
From Russian royalty to Gen Y, how does a Champagne house with such antiquity behind its name keep relevant with new consumers? To start, moving towards more conscious farming is a solid beginning. The estate’s vineyards began transitioning to organic/biodynamic farming some 20 years ago, with all vineyards becoming officially certified back in 2012. This decision not only resonated with a new generation of more conscious drinkers, but also helped the brand to become more adaptive to climate change taking place around them .”[Farming this way] is risky, as it does not work every year – no Cristal was produced in 2010 and in 2011 – but when it does, Cristal is the ultimate expression of what a prestige Champagne can be,” Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, chef de cav of Roederer said.
From a marketing standpoint, Roederer has increased its social media presence for the sake of reaching a new generation of consumers. However, according to Lécaillon, marketing isn’t a top priority for the house. “As a general rule of thumb, we do as little marketing as possible. We believe in building personal connections,” says Lécaillon. Roderer does this by placing a large emphasis on hosting numerous consumer events, trade lunches, and in-store tastings, believing that sharing the estate’s story via face-to-face conversation is key.
Play that funky music
The music industry undoubtedly played a role in the rise of Roederer’s popularity and consumer relevance, though Lécaillon isn’t sure how to compute the exact influence. “We really don’t know the impact on brand image or on sales, as we don’t conduct any market research,” he says. Cristal became widely associated with the hip-hop music industry during the mid-1990s and early 2000s, thanks to a variety of references made from the likes of Raekwon, Jay-Z, and 50 Cent, to name a few. Roederer’s managing director Frédéric Rouzaud famously told The Economist that he looked at such brand interest with “curiosity and serenity”, later going on to make a controversial statement about the inability to control who buys the product, which ultimately led to a shying away from the brand by numerous long-standing supporters.
Brand expansion via partnerships has also been a major factor in helping Roederer adapt with the times and resonate with young consumers. In 2006, Rouzaud (seventh generation of Roederer) partnered with designer Phillippe Starck to create Louis Roederer Brut Nature, a new zero-dosage cuvée. Inspired by their longtime friendship, the duo pursued a bottle that they felt reflected both of their passions for creativity. Roederer Brut Nature is a single-parcel (Cumières) no-dosage wine made from 100% biodynamically farmed fruit, harvested in conjunction with the lunar calendar. The wine is a co-fermented blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, and Chardonnay, bottled with no additional sugar. The wine is not produced every year.
When it comes to competition from other high-end sparkling wine markets, Roderer isn’t particularly concerned. “Cristal is inimitable,” says Lécaillon. “As such, it lives happily in its own space. Any genuine sparkling wine enthusiast aspires to drink Cristal because it is an aspirational wine, as Mouton is for Bordeaux or DRC is for Bourgogne lovers.” Lécaillon notes that the wine’s limited release, global demand in 100-plus markets (which exceeds what the house can produce), and immediate allocations are three major factors that set the wine apart.
Lécaillon believes that sourcing fruit from family-owned vineyards across various grand and premier cru sites, organic and biodynamic farming, and the wine’s unique packaging is what helps set the house’s bottles above an ocean of run-of-the-mill sparkling wine.
So what’s next for Roederer? In addition to continued expansion (Roederer purchased famed Sonoma estate Merry Edwards in 2019, for example), according to Lécaillon, simply capturing the attention of a younger audience via continued growth.”[We’re working to] win the hearts of a new and younger generation of [wine drinkers] who appreciate and value a wine made by people with a long-term vision and respect for the planet,” he says. Lécaillon adds that the house plans to do this by creating new personal connections at consumer tastings and events, as well as through sharing the soon-to-launch “Cristal Diaries”, which will launch on their website and social media platforms.
The Cristal Diaries will be used to tell the story of Cristal as a “grand vin”, highlighting details on the numerous terroirs/parcels, farming practices, and vinification practices used to create the wine. “We recognized early on that social media was becoming critical as a delivery system for brand messaging,” says Xavier Barlier, senior vice president of communications and marketing. “I have been very lucky that Jean-Baptiste fully embraced this idea from the beginning, namely on Twitter. He has been a fascinating storyteller of this on-going and neverending journey.”
From Russian Czars to the times of Twitter, staying in-tune with consumers is clearly the key to success.
